I also think we can safely presume that iRadio (let's call it that until we know)...

Good point. As previously discussed in another thread iRadio is an old and still service going back nearly 2 full decades. It might be called iRadio colloquially — like calling the iPod Touch iTouch — but it may have a completely different name. If we don't even know what it will be called how can we say what it will offer the user. At the very least we should consider that Apple is getting into the streaming radio business after this many years, despite coming with integrated 3rd-party support in iTunes 1.0, because they have some unique to offer.

I personally think iTunes Radio is a better overall name due to the brand recognition and lack of legal impedance.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

Why do you bother commenting on a question related to a set of comments that are based on a rumor?

Heck, why bother to visit -- let alone be a member -- of this site?

It's not being snarky or dismissive. It's admitting the reality of the situation which is that NO ONE knows anything definitive at all about this supposed "iRadio". Complaining that Apple isn't being innovative, etc. when we don't even know for certain they are doing a streaming radio service is incredibly stupid.

Yup. I forgot that Jobs innovated every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

that's right... As I remember....

Wozniak was really just the beard (he needed someone to get him into the homebrew computer club) and steve was the one who invented the Apple I, while working full time at Atari, and supporting his girlfriend and daughter Lisa...

...Steve quit Apple to rescue Pixar, teaching them how to digitally encode movies, and built their SAN out of discarded magneto Optical disks from his farm of diskless NextCubes (where he had gone to china and mined the Magnesium necessary to forge the shells), And it was Steve who convinced

...all in one computers didn't exist before the Steve invented the iMac,

...mp3 music players didn't exist before the iPod, which Steve hand etched the lithography for the mother board, and gave up Apple's supply of Lithium (which threatened his dominion, because only those who were supplied 'Lithium Licks' were allowed to work within the RDF Steve emanates)

and the mach microkernel and BSD interface underpinning OS X as a personal computer operating system was hand coded (actually foot coded, he was typing under the table on a machine he hand soldered the night before) by Steve during a board meeting. Avi Tevanian was just a CMU post doc who 'never shipped squat' before Steve tutored him on Object Oriented Operating Systems.

....and touchscreen phones were karmic vision of the future from the Universal Mother to Steve while on a wheatgrass and lentil juice IV drip,

...and it was actually Steve who handed a slate computer to Bill Gates before he went on stage, saying... 'Hey... use this, someday, this will be really hot... just please, please, please don't use that stylus from your PDA"

That worries me a bit. Also isn't this going to be a rather limited service pertaining to choice of music if Sony isn't on board? Anyway I hope the service does well, if so then Sony will most likely come along for the ride at a later date, even though I hope it isn't too much later!

I'm being completely serious with this comment so please don't bash me or give a sarcastic reply like I see on here all the time - can somebody please explain to me the difference between iRadio and Spotify/Pandora?

iRadio hasn't even been announced by Apple so nobody knows what the differences will be. Everyone throwing barbs back and forth are basing it all on rumour and speculation.

“What would I do? I’d shut Apple down and give the money back to the shareholders”

But we all know they have't done jack for going on a year because, well they haven't done anything for nearly a year. Nothing. 70,000+ employees, billions in cash and not one single unique idea in a long time as earnings shrink. If iRadio or a 5S is the best they have, look out below.

Apple has annual cycles, and we're almost at the beginning of the next one with a likely bunch of new announcements next week, given Apple's pattern of announcing new things at every WWDC.

I don't know how hard it is for you to notice the year elapsing but not notice the cycle.

But we all know they have't done jack for going on a year because, well they haven't done anything for nearly a year. Nothing. 70,000+ employees, billions in cash and not one single unique idea in a long time as earnings shrink. If iRadio or a 5S is the best they have, look out below.

Ugh. So it takes just one day to develop, design, test, iterate, and announce products? This is why you're a troll.

Good point. As previously discussed in another thread iRadio is an old and still service going back nearly 2 full decades. It might be called iRadio colloquially — like calling the iPod Touch iTouch — but it may have a completely different name. If we don't even know what it will be called how can we say what it will offer the user. At the very least we should consider that Apple is getting into the streaming radio business after this many years, despite coming with integrated 3rd-party support in iTunes 1.0, because they have some unique to offer.

I personally think iTunes Radio is a better overall name due to the brand recognition and lack of legal impedance.

I wouldn't be surprised if the term will be... iTunes. If not officially then trough popular usage. Like the iTouch as you mention. Once you are paid up, or signed on, I suspect people will say 'I heard it on 'iTunes'. It's where you listen, and if you want, also buy your music. Apple may want to differentiate but I am not sure if people care for that. They just want to listen, right?

Apple has an annual cycle. I don't know how hard it is for you to notice the year elapsing but not notice the cycle.

The guy is saying Apple hasn't done anything for a year despite a huge number of radical changes that other vendors are only now starting to play catch up with. Why isn't this rabble rouser's account being deleted?

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I'm being completely serious with this comment so please don't bash me or give a sarcastic reply like I see on here all the time - can somebody please explain to me the difference between iRadio and Spotify/Pandora?

Good question. Based on the rumors so far, nothing.

That is not entirely true. Rumors say apple is getting a worse deal on the licensing for the music and having to give up 10% instead of 4% on the ad revenue. I'm guessing they are not paying more to deliver the same features as other services. That is if any of the rumors are even true.

That is not entirely true. Rumors say apple is getting a worse deal on the licensing for the music and having to give up 10% instead of 4% on the ad revenue. I'm guessing they are not paying more to deliver the same features as other services. That is if any of the rumors are even true.

If that difference in payout is accurate I don't think that's a bad deal for Apple (and certainly a great deal for the content owners) since Apple has shown so far that it doesn't use ads to pay their on bills. If iMessage is anything to go by this could be very devastating to competing services even if Apple doesn't' offer anything unique, like giving iTS credit* for those that use iRadio.

* Wouldn't giving such a credit be similar to what Amazon has done with the eBook market if Apple still had to pay the content owner for the free purchased media the user receives? I could see that as giving Apple an unfair advantage.

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I wonder if a portion of the ad revenue will go to the carriers to subsidize the bandwidth usage. Then some or all of the bytes not count against the user's data plan.

That would be awesome but I doubt that will transpire, at least not right away. My reasoning is that the carriers tend to be very loose with secrets compared to others so if there was any talk about this which, would have to include the data costs to the carriers and the cost to allow iTunes Radio not to get counted thereby branching into the technical teams at the carriers, we'd have heard something about it by now. I hope I"m wrong because I love your idea as it's the primary reason I don't use Pandora, Spotify, or my favorite, XM Radio, on my iPhone.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

That would be awesome but I doubt that will transpire, at least not right away. My reasoning is that the carriers tend to be very loose with secrets compared to others so if there was any talk about this which, would have to include the data costs to the carriers and the cost to allow iTunes Radio not to get counted thereby branching into the technical teams at the carriers, we'd have heard something about it by now. I hope I"m wrong because I love your idea as it's the primary reason I don't use Pandora, Spotify, or my favorite, XM Radio, on my iPhone.

AT&T's CTO spoke about this type of thing in 2012. I thought I'd read the CEO did as well in 2011. I also recall many here mocking the concept. If iRadio was hosted on the carriers' backbones, transit fees and congestion can be avoided, latency reduced and quality maintained. Nothing says Apple won't colocate on provider prems and/or drag multiple Tier1 service providers back to their data centers.

Edit - Typo fix.

Edit - allow me to add that none of this is innovative so Apple couldn't be praised. This is how much of what we watch and listen to on public airwaves and basic cable is funded.Edited by ChristophB - 6/6/13 at 10:54am

I made your watch list, huh? Hey, I call it how I see it. I use Apple products, but they weren't divinely sent from heaven to Steve Jobs in a dream and perfected for our very consumption. Apple is like any other company that happens to make some great products. I've been an Apple user since 1982, so don't tell me about Apple. I used Apple II's when they were the computer to have and when they weren't any longer. I used Macs when Apple nearly went extinct. I knew Appleworks like the back of my hand. So don't act like you're expert on Apple's business.

No, I interpret what he's saying as there being very little that we are seeing from Apple that could be called 'innovative' in the Applesque sense. All I've heard so far are a lot of 'incredibles' thrown around.

I am willing to wait until September until I throw in the towel, but so far, I am unimpressed (hardware updates and the iPad Mini notwithstanding). I am fervently hoping that I am proved totally wrong.

Btw, to say that Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs is not incorrect in the least. Moreover, he's the CEO. At the end of the day, the buck stops with him.

(Just to clarify matters, I am no fan of jdnc123. I am also not a big fan of TS's knee-jerk responses).

I agreed with your comments that's how I see it has well and I am not fan of Jdnc123, but TS like a unstable bomb, when it come to Apple.

Come guys iRadio, only if Apple provide some unique option that never been done, then it would innovative. This one idea that I am not going to buy.

The guy is saying Apple hasn't done anything for a year despite a huge number of radical changes that other vendors are only now starting to play catch up with. Why isn't this rabble rouser's account being deleted?

We here know different but in reality he saying what the general public believes.

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

If iMessage is anything to go by this could be very devastating to competing services even if Apple doesn't' offer anything unique, like giving iTS credit* for those that use iRadio.

* Wouldn't giving such a credit be similar to what Amazon has done with the eBook market if Apple still had to pay the content owner for the free purchased media the user receives? I could see that as giving Apple an unfair advantage.

A great idea but with a big loophole. People could just leave the service running for hours on end on a iDevice that stays home. There would need to be a dead man switch to prevent that.

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

The problem with post like the one jdnc123 made is that they don't consider Apple as a company that offers more than one product. Pandora, Spotify, Rdio's only product is streaming music.

Apple innovates in many fields and in some others, offer a product similar to the one that other companies already offer and integrate it in their ecosystem. Their innovation for such product is how it integrates with their ecosystem.

Plus, Apple will probably offer a broader distribution than what competitors already offer. Spotify and Pandora aren't available in my country (Canada), but I bet iRadio will be launched at the same in the US, Canada and many other countries. Take this for innovation.

True, until Apple offers a truly outstanding washer/dryer combination experience they'll be completely lacking on the "innovation" metric! And that washer/dryer just better have a mini-USB port and replaceable batteries! Or. Else.

For myself, at the moment, this feature seems periferal, but so what? It's one of an entire series of features, many I rely on and many others I couldn't care less about.

Maybe this has been asked and answered, if so I apologize .... On my Apple TV it has music, different channels etc. I can play all day long. (I understand this is not pandora / spotify etc) I presume the record companies get paid? Is there a reason this service does not happen on iphone now (seams straightforward) or does it and I am just completely dense. Which if so, please educate me.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster by your side, kid.

Maybe this has been asked and answered, if so I apologize .... On my Apple TV it has music, different channels etc. I can play all day long. (I understand this is not pandora / spotify etc) I presume the record companies get paid? Is there a reason this service does not happen on iphone now (seams straightforward) or does it and I am just completely dense. Which if so, please educate me.

Primary difference is that the channels on the AppleTV, as with the iTunes Mac/PC application point to the radio station which has a point of presence on The Net. The Pandora, Spotify and presumably the iRadio would have the content sourced from the service provider.

(Just to clarify matters, I am no fan ofjdnc123. I am also not a big fan of TS's knee-jerk responses).

Hear, hear. TS is the least thoughtful moderator of any site I use on a regular basis.

On topic: there were MP3s before iTunes, MP3 players before iPod, smartphones before iPhone, tablets before iPad. Not being first to market hasn't hurt Apple so far.

That said, I'll have to be persuaded by awfully interesting features to listen to an ad-supported service when there are ad-free alternatives available at modest cost. And I hope that Apple will have a subscription option.

I don't normally spend much time listening to music on mobile tho I do use Pandora sometimes and gave Spotify a spin a couple months back.

Last night on a whim I decided to give Google All Access a try. It's free for 30 days anyway. I was impressed. It's not really a radio and its not really streaming music. It's kind of a mix but a very well done one in my opinion. You can search a song, an artist or even a type of music. Turn a song choice into a radio station or listen to just that artist or album instead. View upcoming songs on that station, swipe away songs you don't want to hear, and skip forward or back. For $8 a month, especially since I can take songs and add them directly to my own personal library for no extra charge, I think I'm going to keep it around for a bit. Its done much better than I expected.